It's Not A Bender, It's A Lifestyle.

Back to town in March. Not much chance for a birthday April trip this year as the bunch of broadcaster assholes have their convention that week again this year so I'm cutting a month off the wait and going back in the last week of March. Going in early on a Sunday and leaving evening on Thursday so 4 days off of work but I'll have the PTO well built up by then. Good timing as I'll have a month or 6 weeks to recover financially from the Xmas trip before having to start saving for this one, and with any luck I'll have some tax refund income to put toward it as well. No slam dunk on that this year as it was a weird tax year last year but hopefully there'll be something. Getting back on the Mlife train and have a Delano King Suite. Unreal rate for the room, a little over $34/night, which is crazy for that suite. One bedroom, huge bathroom, posh resort. Plus I get to check Delano off my "never stayed" list. Way more room than I need but if I'm only...

Just about set for Xmas Vegas fun time.  Little over 24 hours before wheels down. Have pre-checked in to the room at Mirage, was offered an upgrade to a view room but being I'm only there two nights I figure it's not worth the expense. I got a comped room there for a reason, might as well make the most of it by saving the $40 for the rest of the trip. In any case the real main event happens Sunday when I check into Cosmopolitan for 5 nights. Pulled four days worth of cash out of the bank today, need to make a run to the BoW in South City near work tomorrow at some point to get the rest. Hit all targets, and even a little better, as expected. Plenty of dosh available for the festivities.  I get to check into the flight in a few hours. Hopefully, even though it's a hellishly busy flying day, my flight is late enough that I'll miss the crowds and delays. I should be leaving work around 3-3:30p, Uber to San Bruno BART, and probably be at OAK by 5p-ish. Plen...

Kind of can't believe it, but finally, after 3 months of obsessing about this trip after the last trip, I'll be on the plane to Vegas in 4 days. Putting a bow on this nutty Vegas year by being there for the annual Xmas X-travaganza. Locked up on all the planning and prep, just need to do one more load of laundry, pack some shit, pull the money out of the bank and get my ass to the airport Friday night. Very ready for this trip, the City grind has been grinding the last few weeks that I've been in hibernation and it's time to blow off whatever steam I have left in the tank this year. Ready to leave the fog, the idiot landlords, the job and the general normie-life rut behind for a week. Time to eat some good food, drink some good drinks, meet some bad women and lose some hard-earned money. Not much else to say. The VegasTimeBomb is set and I just need the fuse to burn down to around 10p Friday night when I'm wheels down. Let's go, ya bitches.

Less than 2 weeks to Xmas in Happyland. I have had the eerie duty of checking things off the final month check list this past week that I've been starting at wistfully on my calendar since I booked the trip. Don't think I could be in a greater state of Hype-ness. I've taken care of all the financial obligations before the trip, payed car loan, 1/2 rent, cell bill, and the obligatory gift for the momz. I punted one bill for HSF back by a couple weeks, so all I will need to do is pay the other 1/2 rent on the 19th and I'm done. All the save targets for the various cash and cards will be hit or exceeded. Seeing my dentist this week for a pre-trip cleaning. Can't hurt. Work will be slightly more complicated than it could be as our manager saw fit to remove one of our team for most of the month, and one of the others is leaving on vacation Wednesday, but we have a fill in person that seems competent enough so the three of us should be OK for the diminished wor...

It's December 1st. 20 days until Vegas-ness. It's getting real real now. This gets down to the no bullshit prep stage now. The hard, HARDcore save goes into effect this Friday as the second to last paycheck before Vegas hits. This one will be made slightly easier though as I was able to sell off the old Pixel 2 XL on Craigslist. Now that the 4 XL is here there was no reason to hang on to it anymore. I got $200 cash for it, around $70 better than I would have done with Google's pitiful trade-in credit. That gives me most of the capital I will need to get me through to the 20th, and takes pressure off the Mlife CC which I'm trying to keep as clear as possible. My goal is to have a full $4K free on it when I hit the ground in Vegas and I should have no issues now with the cash infusion. Can pay down another $350 on Friday to get it down to a little over $300 balance, then I can just coast until the 20th to keep it under $600. Will use the Disco to cover the outsta...

It dawned on me today that, hey, after 30+ trips, I know some shit about Vegas. I will begin to impart this sage, invaluable, Yoda-like wisdom in this post. I will add a snippet here and a snippet there (and a snippet everywhere) as I think of things that may make the Vegas-ing easier for those less infinitely knowledgeable than me. Which is all of you. This will be a LONG post eventually. Rooms and Resorts: Don't Get Hung Up On It! A big mistake I see on the Vegas Message Board (basically THE clearing house of Vegas-going wisdom) is people asking "where should I stay that has the best this or the best that". It's a trap that's easy to fall into. With other vacation spots, you are sort of locked into one resort or vacation area. In Cabo, you generally book an all-inclusive and you more or less stay rooted there. In the mountains, you're going to pick a ski resort and pretty much stay and play there, and so on. It can be a good thing, as you don't ...

Adding one more toy to the Xmas trip toy chest. Picked up a Pixel 4 XL through Google Fi. I've flirted with the idea of getting a 4 or 4 XL to replace the 2 year old Pixel 2 XL I have now, and even test drove the Pixel 4 at launch. The 4 has some cool features and I love the design, but the small size, battery life (crappy) and price (high) made it too hard a sell. Come a month later though, and presumably due to sluggish sales the Pixel line is on 50% off through Fi for Black Friday. The $450 discount comes in the form of service credits, so once I clear a 60-day activation period I will have basically no-cost Fi service for around 15 months. I will just need to pay the cost of no-interest financing the phone, so that will be around $40/month, which cuts my bill down by over $20 a month. Sold. Also getting another $200 in cash for selling the 2 XL so the actual cost of the phone ends up at $250. That's ridiculous for a flagship. The 4 XL has wireless charging, face un...

Countdown is well and truly engaged for Winter Vegas Extravaganza 2019. Today marks 30 days until touch down. All planning on target to be in a great place for the trip. I will have $2K saved as of Friday on the way to $4100. I have nothing left to buy until trip time aside from the normal monthly and daily expenses, reduced as they will be, and the Mlife credit card is in a good place to be mostly clear by go-time. I always obsess about having enough dough on trips but always comfortably do when the time comes. No changes to the itinerary or the plan, and don't foresee any. Plane/room situation locked in, Allegiant in, Mirage for two nights and Cosmo for five. Couldn't change flight or Cosmo anyway without forfeiting them. Then the "plan" part of things looks good to me, don't see any need to add or subtract. Good mix of things to do days balanced by total freedom days. In short, I'm ready to GO. Life, oh life. Work is going well, should be a pretty ...

On paper pretty high overhead this time, but in reality a good bit of savings this trip. -Two nights at the Mirage, comped, would have been $99/night so $198 saved. -Five nights at the Cosmopolitan, $405, would have been $670 so $265 saved. -Atomic Saloon Show ticket, $48 through Vegas.com, normal price $83 so $35 saved. -Reservation at Jean Georges Steakhouse at Aria, estimating $120, will use Mlife Express Comps so $0. $120 saved.  -Will have another approximately $50 of Express Comps to use, $50 value. So altogether around $670 of savings over Joe Jimbob Nocomp from Poughkeepsie. Solid. I do have a pretty high flight obligation this time but since I'm flying on a bargain basement airline I shelled out for comfort things like a forward seat, priority boarding and an overhead carry-on spot. I've gotten to the point in my trips where if I can buy myself out of discomfort or stress on flights I am more than willing to do that. Getting the nights at the C...

Whelp, the final trip of 2019 is nearly upon us, so time to lay out what the hell I'll be doing. Leaving work on the 20th and headed straight to OAK from there by Ubering to BART, leaving the car in the work garage for the week. Arriving late after the flight, won't be in town until 10p, so straight to the Mirage from the airport, get checked in and drop off the bags, then will head out for a little snack and probably some moderate drinking. Maybe hang at the Venetian/Palazzo complex as it's across the street from the Mirage. No gambling this first short night, keeping the full cash spend in place for the 6 days to follow. Saturday, probably a nice relaxed, sleep in type of morning, no plans for the day so I can settle into things and not feel like I'm in any rush to get all "Vegas-y". This is the added day to the trip, so I'm going to try to ease into the trip and not get too gambled and drinked out. Still, it is Vegas, so whatever happens happens...

Got a ticket to see Rise of Skywalker in Vegas. Prime seat in IMAX, right in the middle of the theater at a good time, 11:30a. Won't have to be up too early after a couple day's shenanigans. Only $13, so a cheap way to be entertained in town for a couple hours, and to give my head time to clear from the night before no doubt. So I will have completed my destiny and seen all 3 of the new trilogy in Vegas. Bit of an Xmas tradition 3 of the last 5 years. I'm not expecting much from this one honestly, TLJ pretty much murdered this trilogy, and I'm dubious that it can be saved but at the very least SW movies are all a spectacle. And hell, it's cheaper than sitting in some video poker bar grinding on a machine with a hangover, which is probably the only other thing I'd be doing at that hour. And that, friends, ends the planning for the Xmas trip. A movie on the Monday, a show on Tuesday, a meal on Wednesday, and nada on Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday. Nee...

Added one more day (and a night) to the Xmas trip. I have a shit ton of time off during the Xmas-New Year break. With 12 days off, 4 3/4 days was just feeling a little short for an Xmas trip, especially since past Xmas trips have gone as long as 7 full days. SO, I added a two-night stay at Mirage, comped, at the start of the trip. I'll now be flying out late Friday the 20th, getting in at around 10p, and the back end of the trip stays the same with me flying out the following Friday at the same time I had originally booked. The change fee on the flight means I'm paying damn near $300 on just the flight this time, but I spread the cost out over time and cards so not too much pain. It'll all be paid off before I'm even in the air. Same deal: priority boarding, 4th row seat and a carry-on both ways. So it'll be two nights at the Mirage, which is cool, and then the full five nights at Cosmo that I had already booked. 7 nights, 6 days, as they say. No need for f...

Racking up the Mlife points with the, uh, Mlife Credit card.  Have about $65 in points left over from the last trip, and by the time I get to Vegas for the Xmas trip I should have between $120-150, so to blast through those and simultaneously have the killer Xmas meal I have booked a reservation at Jean George steakhouse at the Aria on Xmas night.  I've eaten there before and the steak was quite good, don't remember it being Delmonico-tier but nothing else in Vegas that I've had really is. The big pluses for doing JG are that it is right next door to my home resort for that trip, and that it will be free, aside from a tip. I always try to book a splurge meal on Xmas night itself, and this will certainly do the trick. Hard to go wrong with a good steak and the location keeps me more or less center strip to continue the Xmas frivolity after the meal.  I'm also booking Delmonico at Venetian as my lead in meal before the Atomic saloon show there. No, No...

Farting around, as I do, on the various Vegas interwebz, and went on Priceline, just to see if anything ridiculous was available for Xmas week. Turns out ridiculousness is back on the menu. Was able to book the lovely, the amazing, the incomparable Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas for the low, LOW price of $81/night via an Express Deal. That's just crazy. I'm an Identity member and the lowest I could score on the resort website was $141/night. This is like 40% off. Only concession is it's a run of house, but the lowest "house" room is the very nice and recently renovated City Room which is more than adequate for my needs. Plus from past Xmas week experience at the Cosmo it's more than possible that upgrades to a suite may well be reasonable once I get there. This also does mean I'm locked in to this reservation, as it's pay up front and no refunds, but fuck it, no way I was going to do any better than my favorite resort for less than $85/night. So th...

Added the one "show" show I will see while in town in December, the new Atomic Saloon show at Venetian. It's done by the same group that does Absinthe and Opium. I saw Opium and it's hands down the funniest show I've seen. Hopefully this will be similar if in a different genre, and if it's 3/4 as good it will be worth the $60. Thus my "planning" for the Xmas trip is pretty much done. I will be seeing the new Star Wars flick while I'm there, a bit of a tradition for the last 2 main sequel trilogy movies. So that and Atomic Saloon will be the vehicles to break up the "drink/gamble/drink routine" that I can fall into in town. Also added priority boarding to the Allegiant flight thus taking a little stress out of the flight, they have a ridiculous boarding process that would have seen me board last despite me buying a bag and a seat. Which they probably knew, and knew I would shell out the extra $13 for priority boarding. Which I did...

Decided to buy myself a present after coming back with some leftover cash from the last Vegas trip. Picked up an iPad Mini. I've been looking at getting a tablet for a while now, mainly as a media device for Vegas trips, frankly, and also because sometimes I have to break down and be a consumer whore. I was looking at Surface Pro 4 or Galaxy Tab 5e, but the Surface just has too much of an identity crisis being a tablet running a desktop OS (badly) and the Galaxy is under-powered compared to the iPad. The iPad is the newest model, has a blazing fast A12 Fusion chip, 3GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, an amazing to look at, perfectly portable screen size and the new iPad OS. Picked it up at Target for $400 and got a protective cover for it. Less than the Surface would have been and not 4 years old. How this relates to Vegas (because it all comes back to Vegas), is that it should be a fun movie watching/music listening toy for the trips; looking forward to throwing it in the bag ...

Flight is booked. Going in via Oakland (ugh, but it was significantly cheaper) arriving around 2:30p on the Sunday, so straight to the hotel to check in then will have 3/4 of the day to par-tay with no worries and no bell desk bag bullshit.  (EDIT: now going in Friday the 20th). Nice relaxed time for the flight back at around 1p on the Friday so I can sleep in as much as possible and not have to worry about rushing to McCarran still drunk from the night before. Going with Allegiant this time, first time flying with them. I imagine it's probably similar to the Spirit experience as they are a dirt cheap bargain airline, but I sprung for a carry-on and a 4th row seat so hopefully it won't be too painful. All-in $240. Not great but it's Xmas week and I certainly wasn't going to do any better with the bag and seat out of SFO, and had I waited I probably wouldn't have been able to get the cherry front seat. So that's done and booked and now the overhead for...

Already in jonez mode for the Xmas trip, more than 3 months away. Put in my PTO request today and got no pushback. Will end up having a total of 12 days off, going from the 21st, a Saturday, all the way through to the 1st, a Wednesday. I only have two actual holiday days off from Fisher (cheap bastards) but the rest of the time will be my 2 floating holiday days, then just two actual PTO charged days to fill out the week. Will do some kind of bullshit "work from home" the Monday and Tuesday after the post-Xmas weekend. Plane ticket not bought yet. Waiting for them to creep under $200 then will have to pounce. No major cheap fare this year, since I'm constrained by work to go during actual Xmas week. Would consider flying out of OAK if it involves a significant saving, though. Not so hard to get in and out of there. Still locked into the higher-end (for Luxor) Elite King room. Don't see any need or reason to change it as it's the best value room I'm go...

A good one! Very fun, and won a little money to boot. I didn't keep track of the particulars as there's no real need to anymore on these non-plan trips, but a few general notes from a trip that has me wishing I was back in Vegas - though it was just yesterday that I came back. The biggest positive (of many positives) was winning some damn money for once. I was rambling about on the last day of the trip, sort of aimlessly working my way north when I decided to stop into Mirage. I had been playing mainly VP during the trip, not really hitting much aside from a 4 OAK, mainly the idea was just to grind away and try to get to Mlife Gold. I decided to sit at the VP bar next to the sports book. Grabbed a seat and started playing Triple Double bonus. I was losing faster than usual, couldn't really figure out why, was playing quarters and assumed it was max bet $1.25. Was down to my last $5 when I hit the above, 4 aces with the kicker. $2K. The biggest hand pay I've ever...

T-minus one day to Los Weegees. The readiness is all. The money is set, will have the Mlife CC to do the heavy lifting of the room and food and drink stuff, and will have $700 each day for gambling/tip/cab money, which should be more than enough, and a couple hundred for walking around (and airport beer) money. Taking the Discover along too for another $1200 of emergency funds that will not be needed, but it's nice to know it's there. Hoping to rack up that Mlife Gold this trip, if the video poker gods deem me worthy. Looking forward to the Mandalay Bay Elite King Suite that awaits, hopefully can luck into a strip view but I really don't care that much. It's been a long time since I've been at MB and I'm exited to be back. It won't happen on this trip but it really is a resort that you never really have to leave while you're staying there. So much to do and eat and drink. No change to the plan, in that there is no plan. It'll be warm in town...

Got the inevitable email from Mandalay Bay offering upgrades for the 3 nights starting Sunday, so I took them up on an Elite King Suite at an extra $30/night. Figured why not, last trip until Xmas so let's do it up in style. More space than I need at around 700 sq ft., but again what the hell. The bathroom alone looks like it's bigger than what I live in at home. Dual windows, big soaking tub, sitting area, etc. Could have gotten a penthouse for $70/night but that just seemed ridiculous for a single guy. More triple points earned too toward the Gold - I have had my last Mlife CC statement points load in so I'm just around 25K points away from the next Mlife level. Should be reachable with a decent amount of VP and slot play. Get Gold and take a swing at Platinum for next year is the plan, though for my low-rolling ass that may be a stretch. Free room upgrades on Gold will be worth the effort. Also now have over $180 in either RC or Freeplay to cash in, planning to do...

Rapidly approaching trip 6 (!) of 2019. Freebies and discounts as they stand 3 weeks out. No myVegas this time as I no longer play myVegas. -Three nights at Mandalay Bay, 2 comped nights, $207 with resort fees, would be $473 w/o Mlife, Savings of $266. -Dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak at Four Seasons, will use Resort Credit gained from getting/using the Mlife CC. Probably around $100. Still will have another $80 or so left for another meal if I want to use it. -STILL have the 2 Restaurant.com certs for Senor Frog's and Carlos & Charlies if I feel like using them. $50 savings if used. And that's it. Short trip, small savings, just $481 this time. Still not bad for just 3 days in town. Combine these with the low flight rate and it'll be a low overhead trip. T-minus 3 weeks.

Less than a month until Vegas-McVegasface. Just a quickie (the only kind of quickie I get nowadays, but that's fine). Still with the early fly-in a full 3 days in town. Should be a lively start to things as it will be, after all, Labor Day Weekend, though I'm missing most of the weekend part.  Assuming on-time plane-ness, I'll be on the ground around 9a (hopefully having had a good night's sleep the night before, but TBH I'm used to waking up at the ass crack now so it shouldn't be too much of a chore), then straight over to MB to drop the bags at the bell desk and get some brunch/drink on. Not sure where, probably will try to stay somewhere south strip so I don't have to trek too far once it's check in time. Don't think there's much open in MB at that time of morning except House of Blues and that's gospel on Sundays, so, no. Having gotten a food and a drank on, I will see what can be done about checking in - will likely go ...

Quickie trip added for Labor Day week. Going to get there on Sunday early (9a), have 9/10ths of Sunday, then all of Monday and Tuesday before a late morning fly-out on Wednesday. Since it's Labor Day off, just losing/using 2 vacation days and back to work on Thursday. No real reason to go aside from I can . I won't cost me that much and I frankly can afford it now. The job is going well (slightly stressful but I'm a rock star there), I'm making good money and I deserve/need a couple days off now and again to keep from getting into a 4 month no-Vegas rut, which I was facing until the Xmas trip. Great room and flight rates made it easy to book. $109 round trip on United, and only a little over $200 all-in for the 3 nights at Mandalay Bay. Order of magnitude less than coing in on the Friday before the holiday like I was looking at. Won't need as much cash from the bank this time either, as most of the incidentals (room, food, drink) will go on the Mlife CC. ...

A fun one, more interesting than most and for once I didn't run out of steam. Got in more or less on time, headed over to MGM to check in. Made my way up to the 9th floor West Wing room. WW gets a lot of hate as the rooms are small and older but they were fine for me. Coming from the hole I live in even a 300 sq/ft room seems like a palace to me. Strange layout, no real view and definitely showing it's age but again no problem for a single guy. Was easy enough to get in/out of and elevators were never too packed even on 4th w/e. Got out to the strip while the sun was still declining, hit a couple spots to liquor up then went up to Twin Peaks to get some food. Sort of meandered about after that not doing much memorable. This whole night pretty foggy really, made my way down, already pretty drunk to Fuel and hung out there for a long while. Met a girl from Kentucky who was kind of boring but we sort of hit it off I guess? She ended up having to leave to meet some arriving fri...

Yeah no. -4 nights in MGM Grand West Wing room, $482, would be $1263 to book non-Mlife, $781 saved. -$75 Freeplay via myVegas rewards. -myVegas reward for a dinner buffet at Bellagio - $39 value. -Possible $50 Restaurant.com cert value. So "savings" of over $900 but if I hadn't had the discount from Mlife on the MGM rooms I wouldn't have booked it at all. Factor in the rape from the flight cost of $450 and it's by no means a bargain trip worthy of a Freebies post. The buffet would be my first in Vegas, we'll see if it fits my spur jinglin' that day, it has to be Thursday or not at all. So decidedly meh, but I suppose the moral of the story is - I'm going to Vegas for 4 nights instead of sitting around in the City in my underwear. So there's that.

Since Las Vegas is now, has been and apparently always will be the sole focus of my leisure life, and since I seem to have settled on MGM resorts as the focus of that focus, I have signed up for an Mlife Mastercard. I've dabbled with the other resort companies in town. I tried to single-play Cosmopolitan for a year, nothing really came of it tier-wise or comp-wise. I saw some decent resort credit accrue but for me the name of the comp game is free rooms, and they haven't so much as given me a sniff. I'm in Grazie with V/P but they also don't know I exist. I had a good run of about a year with Caesars Rewards hooking me up with rooms, but I always low-or-no played them so they finally caught on to me and cut me off. MGM and Mlife, despite some ups and downs, has consistently been the resort group that has taken care of me with stay and play packages that fit my needs at resorts I like to be at, mostly (looking at you, Bellagio and Aria). It was more so that way whe...

Happy happy good times in T-minus two weeks. If the flight's on time I should be at the resort around 6:30p, with any luck I'm checked in, unpacked and out to the strip by 7p. Again, fairly easy-going first night probably as I will have just a half-day's spend, so maybe a reasonable dinner, some drinkies and little to no gambling. Not going to overdo it on the first night by design. Rest of the trip is the full 3 weekend days, and I plan to really just wing it. I'm really likely to just pick a direction in the morning and see where the days take me. Will have a full $1K per day so no limits on spend, practically speaking. For foodz, I'm kinda steak'd out after having hit Delmonico on my last 3 trips, I think I will branch out from the beef on this trip, but nothing really stands out to the extent that I need to make a reservation I don't think. There are plenty of food venues in MGM where I'm staying, so I'll probably just wing it nightly. ...

A trip. A palpable trip. Flight delayed 45 minutes on the ground and another half hour on the tarmac, got in an hour late as a result. Fucking Alaska again. Hopped in a cab and over to Luxor to check in, painless, used the kiosk and up to the room in no time. Same room as last time, nothing luxurious but clean and simple and got the job done. Some waiting for elevators as it was a weekend but all in all a fine place to spend 4 nights. So out to the strip by 8p, over to Park by cab and wandered over to Rock & Reilly. This has been one of my go-to's for the past year or so of trips but I think I'm done with it. All the personable bartenders have left and despite my going in there all the time (often in one of their t-shirts) I don't get so much as a nod from the bar manager. Over it, plenty of places to drink in Vegas. Jumped in another cab at PH and headed to Fuel, one of the bars I still love. Always a great vibe, high energy and a bar staff that knows and appreciat...